Agfapan APX film 35mm ??

cagwait · Jul 26, 2009

Does anyone have any information on agfapan film . Ive been away from film photography for a while and discovered that this film was discontinued, however ive now heard it is back?? l like the Rich Blacks and the Tonality that this film produced.
Some retailers in the U.K appear to be selling it stating that 'its back' but the box appears to have changed? Is this the same film

Ian Grant · Jul 26, 2009

Before Agfa ceased manufacture they made a lot of film, that's been flooding the market at cheap prices. It's an excellent film I used it in 35mm, 120 & 5x4 for years, always processing in Rodinal.

Once stocks begin to dry up Fotoimpex will begin coating fresh film in 35mm, 120 & sheet film sizes, it'll be sold under the Adox brand name. There's probably a big push at the moment as film stock isn't that fresh now and although still in date will be getting closer to it's theoretical expiry date.

Ian

tony lockerbie · Jul 26, 2009

I recently bought some of this Agfa Foto branded film, and found it the same as the old APX100, at least it looks and develops the same!

ninjarider · Jul 26, 2009

I believe that www.macodirect.de film (Retro 80, 100, 400) is (almost) the same emulsion. I have used 100 and it's nice. I developed in XTOL. I have my fridge full of Retro 100 and 400 (135 and 120).

andrewkirkby · Jul 27, 2009

Rollei Retro 100 and 400 (not 400s) are original Agfa Photo (Made in Leverkusen, Germany) master rolls. This film is the same as APX100/400 because it IS Agfa APX100/400. There was a huge amount of this film and many others in storage at Leverkusen and it was then bought, cut and canned by Maco using ex-Agfa 35mm spooling machines. This is what i have been told by an ex Agfa contact in Germany.

It's a good film and i prefer it to the Kodak T Grain films. I always process in Rodinal and it is very forgiving

mablo · Jul 27, 2009

andrewkirkby has correct information.

I recently bought enough 35mm Rollei Retro 100 & 400 for one year consumption with a very good price. I have been slowly moving away from Rodinal (1+100 / 1+50) towards D-76 1+1 because it seems to produce more consistent results for me.

Be warned that the 120 version of Rollei Retro 100 curls like hell. 400 is much better though.

darkosaric · Jul 27, 2009

mablo said:
Be warned that the 120 version of Rollei Retro 100 curls like hell. 400 is much better though.

I have also curls problem with Rollei 400. Pretty annoying

cmo · Jul 27, 2009

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

funkpilz · Jul 27, 2009

My drugstore stells it at €1/36exp. I love the stuff, develop it in Rodinal stand or Ilfosol 3. Sharp, fine grained and amazing tonality. Perhaps my favourite 100 ISO film.

aldevo · Jul 27, 2009

Ian Grant said:
Before Agfa ceased manufacture they made a lot of film, that's been flooding the market at cheap prices. It's an excellent film I used it in 35mm, 120 & 5x4 for years, always processing in Rodinal.

Once stocks begin to dry up Fotoimpex will begin coating fresh film in 35mm, 120 & sheet film sizes, it'll be sold under the Adox brand name. There's probably a big push at the moment as film stock isn't that fresh now and although still in date will be getting closer to it's theoretical expiry date.

Ian

I'm not expecting the Adox-branded stuff to be available before 2011.

If Rollei respects Agfa's expiration dates, the last of the Rolliei stock should expire sometime in early 2011. According to FreeStyle Photo in the USA, there's quite a lot of the Rollei stuff still around.

I'm not sure if all the Rollei film will sold before it expires. In fact, you can *still* get Agfa-boxed Agfapan 400 from Adorama in 135.

wogster · Jul 27, 2009

aldevo said:
I'm not expecting the Adox-branded stuff to be available before 2011.

If Rollei respects Agfa's expiration dates, the last of the Rolliei stock should expire sometime in early 2011. According to FreeStyle Photo in the USA, there's quite a lot of the Rollei stuff still around.

I'm not sure if all the Rollei film will sold before it expires. In fact, you can *still* get Agfa-boxed Agfapan 400 from Adorama in 135.

I think it would depend on how it was stored, if they froze it, they might be able to extend the dates by an extra year or two, although the real question is whether they even want to, the profit on it is likely microscopic at this point, and they will be able to get a better margin on the new coated stuff.

Question about Adox though, IIRC someone else owns the Adox name in Canada, any idea if it will be sold here, and under what name?

AgX · Jul 27, 2009

Paul,

Mirko, the chief of Fotoimpex, is a member here `adox-fotoimpex´. Ask him about that Canadian issue.

wogster · Jul 27, 2009

AgX said:
Paul,

Mirko, the chief of Fotoimpex, is a member here `adox-fotoimpex´. Ask him about that Canadian issue.

I will do so, I do hope we see these films here, often these kinds of films can be purchased from the US, with all the extra baggage, which that entails, it would be nice to have a domestic source.

andrewkirkby · Jul 27, 2009

aldevo said:
I'm not expecting the Adox-branded stuff to be available before 2011.

If Rollei respects Agfa's expiration dates, the last of the Rolliei stock should expire sometime in early 2011. According to FreeStyle Photo in the USA, there's quite a lot of the Rollei stuff still around.

I'm not sure if all the Rollei film will sold before it expires. In fact, you can *still* get Agfa-boxed Agfapan 400 from Adorama in 135.

Film expiry is irrelevant when it has been kept uncut in cold storage. Film stored at -50C to -60C will last pretty much indefinitely prior to cutting (aside from a few high speed films)

Kodak have done this with their film stocks for many, many years. The last Technical Pan coating was done 8 years prior to its discontinuance... and this is just one example. Kodachrome is another film that hasn't been coated for quite a few years. We are now down to the final master rolls of film and thus it gets discontinued

The "AGFA" canned and boxed APX film has an expiry date of up to 2011 (5 years from production end). The Rollei film if it has been cut then it could be longer or shorter depending on the production date. If it's still sitting in deep freeze then we might be seeing fresh film for many years. I can't comment as to that as i simply don't know.

wogster · Jul 28, 2009

andrewkirkby said:
Film expiry is irrelevant when it has been kept uncut in cold storage. Film stored at -50C to -60C will last pretty much indefinitely prior to cutting (aside from a few high speed films)

Kodak have done this with their film stocks for many, many years. The last Technical Pan coating was done 8 years prior to its discontinuance... and this is just one example. Kodachrome is another film that hasn't been coated for quite a few years. We are now down to the final master rolls of film and thus it gets discontinued

The "AGFA" canned and boxed APX film has an expiry date of up to 2011 (5 years from production end). The Rollei film if it has been cut then it could be longer or shorter depending on the production date. If it's still sitting in deep freeze then we might be seeing fresh film for many years. I can't comment as to that as i simply don't know.

One of the problems though with that frozen film, is that they own it, and they own the equipment to make new film. Inventory that doesn't sell and machinery that is idle, are both bad. The cost of maintaining inventory increases with every day it sits unsold. The cost of maintaining that inventory frozen, simply means that it's cost is increasing at a higher rate. Machinery that is idle doesn't improve with age, in fact it often deteriorates faster then machinery that is operating, it still represents an investment that costs money to do nothing, especially if they purchased it with borrowed money.

Sales, where an item is reduced in price, started because someone had inventory that wasn't moving fast enough, so rather then continue to see costs of keeping that inventory increase, they reduced the price to give customers a deal to get rid of it.

I haven't seen it for sale here in Canada, would be nice to be able to get cheaper film, even just for a while.

Phil Woodney · Jul 28, 2009

funkpilz said:
My drugstore stells it at 1/36exp. I love the stuff, develop it in Rodinal stand or Ilfosol 3. Sharp, fine grained and amazing tonality. Perhaps my favourite 100 ISO film.

Which drugstore is it? I'm visiting my daughter in the States in the coming weeks and would like to stock up. I love it in XTOL

cmacd123 · Jul 29, 2009

1) AgfaPhoto was the spin off of the consumer/professional photo division of Agfa. They went into liquidation and caused agfa products and trademarks to be scattered to the 4 winds.. You will note the agfaphoto packs have an orange dot rather then the orange diamond logo.

It is said that the agfaphoto folks made a large quantity of the APX 100 and 400 film before they closed and demolished the old west German agfa factory. That supply has been sold by various folks under various names ever since.

2) the remaining parts of AGFA are in belguim, and make industrial films.

3) The fellow behind "Frugal Photographer" had the brilliant Idea to register the ADOX trademark in Canada, but was beaten to the mark to register it in the USA. I am not positive who now owns it in the USA, I understand that the US registration was by the folks behind J and C photo, and when they went away, it was transfered to Photoimpex. Frugal Photographer can't use ADOX as they use a distribution contractor in the US to actually ship out their products, and so they have fallen back to using BLUEFIRE. The Canadian company is apparently even incorporated as "Adox Photowerke". Photoimpex owns the trademark in Germany which I think means thay can use it anywhere in europe for whatever they decide to sell. even the preverbial digital TV set. Since they are good Photo guys I am sure they will stick to photo products.

4) even if their is stock that is not cut in a frozen product storage facility, the expiry date would have to take into account the fog build up from radiation in the cosmos. Cutting and packaging does not start the clock on film expiry. that starts once the freshly coated stock comes off the dryer and is rolled up in master rolls.

oscroft · Jul 29, 2009

In the UK, Retro Photographic say there's lots of the Agfa branded stuff still left...

Dead Link Removed

They currently have APX-100 in stock at a good price, but no APX-400 - that's common, as their stock of the two films seems to alternate. I've got a couple of hundred rolls in the freezer myself - APX-100 is one of my favourite films.

DutchShooter · Jul 30, 2009

I just bought some rollei retro 100 this week, which is the AGFA APX stuff - expiry 01/2011.
I saw several online shops sell retro 100 (=APX) and retro 400s (not APX). Maybe the APX-100 stock is/was bigger than the APX-400 stock, or maybe they produce first a bunch of retro 100 rolls and then a bunch of retro 400 rolls...

Ian Grant · Jul 30, 2009

APX 400 unlike APX25 & APX100 wasn't a new technology improved film compared to the earlier AP versions, but in the end Agfa renamed AP400 as APX400 in line with the rest of their B&W film range.

Unfortunately all stocks of APX100 ın 120 are long gone hopefully the 35mm stock wıll begın to dry up soonö then Mırko can begın re*coatıng ın all sızes

Ian

funkpilz · Jul 30, 2009

Ian Grant said:
hopefully the 35mm stock wıll begın to dry up soonö

I'm working on it.

DutchShooter · Jul 30, 2009

I already shot two rolls of 35mm APX-100 (Rollei Retro) this morning
One for coffee-develop-testing, one for regular developing.

Sal Santamaura · Jul 30, 2009

Ian Grant said:
APX 400 unlike APX25 & APX100 wasn't a new technology improved film compared to the earlier AP versions, but in the end Agfa renamed AP400 as APX400 in line with the rest of their B&W film range...

I'm not so sure about that. Compare this 1996 Agfa information

http://www.cri.ensmp.fr/~silber/photo/docs/films.pdf

with a later publication.

http://mainphoto.com/services/agfa_scala_tech_data.pdf

The data reveal that, in addition to calling Agfapan APX 400 "new generation as of 2003," developing times differ. Previously Rodinal 1:25 in a small tank was specified as requiring 7 minutes at 20 degrees C for gamma = 0.65. That changed to 10 minutes under the same conditions for the same contrast with the newer version. Maximum contrast with the newer film also tops out at gamma = 0.69 no matter how long one develops in Rodinal 1:25, while the older version was documented to at least 0.75.

I'm also looking forward to Mirko bringing this film back to market, specifically in sheets. I hope the product he coats replicates the 2003 version, since it appears very well suited to rotary processing at high temperatures, similar to 320TXP's behavior in Xtol.

Agfapan APX film 35mm ??

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency